


Desolation

by sunflowerbright



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 13:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerbright/pseuds/sunflowerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The water in which one drowns is always an ocean (Armenian Proverb)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desolation

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers up until and including 2.11 - The Outsider

 

She’s floating. It’s odd, because she is fairly certain that this isn’t the ocean, that the ocean only reaches a few miles into the town, away from where she’s currently at.

She can’t be in the ocean. Yet she’s floating.

It feels like soft cotton-wool, or maybe silk-sheets, falling all around her without suffocating, moving as she moves, touching her skin with the barest hints of pressure. Only just keeping her afloat, never pulling or dragging.

She feels quite safe, nestled here – she’s not alone, either, someone is beside her, holding her hand, the most audible of sensations against her skin. It keeps her grounded, she thinks, keeps her from floating all the way from the shore.

(except she’s not in the ocean, so there’s really nowhere she can float away to)

Then she hears the voice and that is perhaps, when she realizes – realizes that she doesn’t know where she is.

“ _Belle_ ,” the voice pleads and she pulls away screaming because _no, stop_ , _I don’t know who you are_

_(I don’t know who I am)_

“Just leave me alone!” she sobs as the nurses rush in, gathering around her like waves ready to fall down and crush her body, leave her gasping for breath, with salt and water in her lungs.

She’s being dragged back under the heavy cloak of sleep as the owner of the voice leaves, and she notices he’s walking with a cane, its blank surface reflecting the light, creating moving patterns like a calmly rocking sea.

His hand is shaking. She wonders if it’s the same hand that held hers just a minute ago.

Belle sleeps.

 


End file.
